Conservative MP Damian Collins, former head of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, has gone further, calling for anyone knowingly sharing misinformation to be charged with a criminal offence. ‘The information contagion around Covid-19 is so dangerous’, he said. ‘It is very easy for false rumours to take hold and spread.’

The government’s fake-news crackdown conflates (already criminal) phishing scams – which trick people into giving up sensitive personal data – and the spreading of unsubstantiated claims, especially if they are made by people pretending to be coronavirus experts.

Most concerning is that this could lead to the censorship of those who disagree with the government’s line on coronavirus – and the extraordinary measures it has put in place to tackle it.

There is a great deal of disagreement among experts on a whole range of questions related to the coronavirus outbreak, such as over the death rate of the virus or the necessity of a society-wide shutdown. Members of the public have every right to weigh in on these debates on social media, too.

An emergency of this magnitude and the responses to it make free speech more important than ever. While it is right to adhere to the lockdown measures in place, such drastic curbs on our daily lives and on our liberties must be subject to constant and ruthless scrutiny.

In fact, the viral outbreak was made so much worse by the Chinese authorities’ aversion to free speech. In December last year, when Dr Li Weinliang began speaking out about a novel virus he had encountered while treating patients in Wuhan, police told him to ‘stop making false comments’ and investigated him for ‘spreading rumours’. He later died from Covid-19.

So while China persecuted those warning about the dangers of coronavirus for spreading fake news, the UK government could punish those who say the problem is exaggerated or who question the government’s advice.

The government and society at large should try to counter rumour, hearsay and misinformation with well-evidenced facts, rather than with censorship. That way we can preserve both public health and healthy debate.

Picture by: Getty.

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Billy Fisher

31st March 2020 at 12:04 am

How so? If it’s clear that the number published is the number of people who died who have tested +ve for Covid 19 then how can it be misinformation? That seems pretty clear. If it were claimed ‘this is the number of people who died BECAUSE they tested +ve for Covid 19’ that’s much less clear and arguable since dying with a disease and because of the disease are two distinct things.

NEIL DATSON

that I’m using the break from my normal routine to translate the whole Mahabhrata into Sumerian. Thank goodness I didn’t. Somebody would have been bound to rumble me. Truth is, I’m only working on the Bhagavad Gita, and that from a crude English version rather than the Sanskrit.

It seems that this government really is set on stealing the Corbynista’s clothes. They wanted the media to be only allowed to publish ‘the truth’, didn’t they?

Kevin Corbett

30th March 2020 at 9:15 pm

This is a most worrying report. Also very concerning are other reports that people are dying without loved ones present and further reports that hospitals are barring relatives from the death bed. This is not a situation like Ebola or the Hantavirus. Such draconian practices go against everything that has been learnt and taught to health care practitioners about death, dying and bereavement. The public are perhaps in danger of being misled by the apocryphal projections now leading government health policy. There is a danger of accepting the unacceptable in terms of medical and nursing practice. Together with last week’s removal of our legal ability to bring litigation against medical doctors and one doctor certifying psychiatric disorders etc (why – does Covid19 cause madness?) these latest reports of official moves to shut down scientific ‘dissent’ over the official line (surely a normal part of science?) should alert us to exactly what type of unaccountable order is possibly being created during this time, but is certainly being considered by our elected representatives.

Iwan Hughes

30th March 2020 at 6:58 pm

What, Like a bunch of jokers from Imperial College London spreading a rumour that 250,000 people were going to die from (with? even) Covid-19? That would be a good place to start.

Ed Turnbull

30th March 2020 at 6:27 pm

And it’s but a short step from banning what we can say to banning what we can read or watch.

Tonight I’ll be watching “V For Vendetta”. I know many folk prefer the original comic, but I find the movie disturbingly prescient in relation to the time in which we find ourselves. Even down to the virus sub-plot. I’m not suggesting that the Wu Flu has been deliberately engineered by any government to provide a pretext from cracking down on the populace. But I do believe there are those who’ve sensed an opportunity.

Ed Turnbull

30th March 2020 at 6:16 pm

Cabinet Office rapid response unit = Ministry of Truth.

This august publication may well argue a pandemic is no reason for us to lose our freedom of speech, but we’ve already lost our freedom of movement, it was inevitable that freedom of speech would follow shortly after.

James Knight

30th March 2020 at 5:41 pm

The BBC reports daily the number of people who died who have tested +ve for covid19. This is misinformation.